


They Descend (And Then They Climb)

by xsaturated



Category: Glee
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-12
Updated: 2013-11-12
Packaged: 2018-01-01 06:53:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 22,180
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1041704
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xsaturated/pseuds/xsaturated
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He’s Cooper’s or he’s Kurt’s or he’s the Warblers’ but he’s never, really, just Blaine. Truth be told, he isn’t all that good at just being Blaine.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> **rating/warnings** : Angst. This is part Break-Up fic, part Anderson family fic, written from exclusively Blaine’s POV and all that entails. So yes, if reading about Kurt and Blaine breaking up is likely to upset you then it's probably best to skip this one.  
>  **notes** : A huge thankyou to [](http://missgoalie75.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://missgoalie75.livejournal.com/)**missgoalie75** for betaing and everyone who has pushed me to finish this fic. This began as a very visceral response to ‘Dance With Somebody’ and became a monster of a reaction fic to basically everything from ‘On My Way’ onwards written over the course of the season. It’s been a long journey but man was it cathartic. Again, read the warnings. Title from ‘Four Days’ by Counting Crows.

It’s one step back.

That’s how it starts, at least.

One day of not eating lunch in the cafeteria with Kurt, just to see. Like a test-run, so he knows what he’ll be facing next year.

Public school is different, he remembers that better than he’d like. Sometimes life before Dalton seems so distant, some dark memory that he’s put so much effort into pushing away from his thoughts. What he does remember is the loneliness.

He doesn’t want to remember that.

It isn’t that he doesn’t like the others – the ones that will still be here come next year, that is – he honestly does, but they aren’t the reason he transferred to McKinley. They aren’t going to fill the hole that will be left behind, when, well-

\- It starts with just one step.

One lunch.

When he arrives in the choir room that afternoon he looks over at Kurt but he’s busy rehashing the endless debate on audition songs with Rachel. He sits down next to Mike instead, waits for something, but Kurt doesn’t look over.

Doesn’t notice.

It doesn’t come up in their nightly phonecall, or the next day either.

It’s almost like it never happened.

-

One lunch. One coffee date. One phone call. One morning text.

Another, another, another.

Breaking routines, breaking patterns, breaking the chain one by one to see which will be the step that gets noticed, which will be too far. They all hurt, every single one, but there’s nothing in response.

The distance builds with each step and he wishes he felt like it was accomplishing something. Like it might lend him some perspective on how to deal with all of this. Kurt gives him a strange look once, when he turns down a _study date_ that is fairly transparent code for Carole having the afternoon shift at the hospital. (He won’t have those either. Better to know now.)

He has friends at McKinley now, he reminds himself. Even if most of them will be leaving just like –

It’s fine.

It’s not like Kurt will notice anyway.

-

They don’t talk.

Kurt talks. Every word that leaves his mouth sounds like NYADA now. A constant stream of how happy and excited he is, how wonderful it will be when he gets there – when he’s finally in New York. When he’s gone.

Blaine bites his lip and nods, offers whatever he can when he feels like he isn’t going to choke on the lump in his throat.

He drags a thumb absently across his eyelid, even though it doesn’t hurt anymore, not really. Phantom pain sometimes.

Kurt’s still talking, something about tips Rachel had found on a message board for impressing at auditions.

It’s hard to keep up the pretence in the face of it all, but Blaine thinks that he could probably give them both a few acting tips with all the practice he’s been getting lately.

\--

He thinks he should at least try. It’s always been easier to say what he means through song.

Then Kurt asks him if it’s about Sebastian and he doesn’t know if he wants to scream or if he wants to cry. The tears are there, burning beneath the surface, but he hates crying.

Even when he’s talking now, it seems that Kurt doesn’t hear him.

\--

The space is starting to feel like a chasm, filled with the things neither of them are willing to deal with.

Things like Karofsky’s suicide attempt and Quinn’s accident and the lurking shadow of Sebastian and more than anything, the looming shape of New York in Kurt’s future and how much it hurts, sometimes, to realize how little the distance seems to affect Kurt already.

He feels small in the shadow of that, insubstantial as the dust that will be left in Kurt’s wake.

Sometimes it’s like he’s already been forgotten.

\--

It doesn’t surprise him that his friends react to Cooper the way they do.

Everyone has always liked Cooper better; less serious, less sad, stop pouting Blaine you look much nicer when you smile. He’s already reeling, off-balance, before Cooper even arrives. Before he’s bundled up into arms and whisked around to bear witness to every scrap of adoration tossed his brother’s way.

It feels like Cooper’s dragged some insane time loop straight out of Hollywood with him; one that stretches the hours of the day until they’re worn so thin and brittle it feels as if they’ll shatter under the weight of something so small as a misplaced look. It’s always like this, when Cooper’s around. Blaine always feels that tiny bit more breakable, like something that’s been left out in the sun for too long until the colour’s all bled out.

Pale, by comparison.

(Exposed.)

It’s worse though, this time around. Because it’s like Kurt is finally noticing, except all he’s really noticing is Cooper.

It’s a stupid smile and a gushed, ‘ _Your brother’s the best-looking man in North America._ ’ It’s seeing his boyfriend look at someone else, Blaine’s own brother, in the way that Kurt barely looks at him anymore. Like he’s the most interesting person in the room.

Sometimes he wonders if Kurt is already getting bored of him.

It makes it easier to blame Cooper for every feeling of inadequacy, of smallness, that consumes him when big brother’s in town. To blame him for being brighter and more handsome and the new shiny thing that all his friends (his boyfriend) want to gossip and gush about. Blaine also knows he’s kidding himself when he pretends that Cooper’s the only reason those feelings exist.

Blaine loves his brother. Fiercely, even, when there’s distance to account for. Cooper’s presence is something bright and brilliant and loud and he’s never shied away from Blaine; he is arms and hands and warmth flung around Blaine’s shoulders or ruffling at his hair and so physically, solidly there.

When Cooper’s around, there is no question in his mind, no space left vacant for that gaping absence that he feels so acutely when he sees Kurt with his father or Rachel with her dads.

It’s easier to focus on the solid things; the strong fingers that squeeze at his shoulder, the arm that winds around his neck, tucks him in solid and safe against his brother’s side. If he focuses on that, on letting Cooper hold all the little pieces of him that threaten to shatter on any given day in place without even knowing he’s doing it, it’s so much easier to ignore that dark space that sits between him and the uncertain future that waits beyond graduation day.

Except that now even that isn’t enough.

Attention makes a monster of his brother, steals away every illusion of security Cooper’s ever carried with him. Blaine needs his brother, the one he sometimes thinks he must have made up because these days it feels like they’re strangers who share the same last name, but all he gets is yet another reminder that everyone he loves is going to leave him in the dust sooner or later.

It’s easier to leave him to it. He hides out in the gym when Cooper comes back for round two of his Master Class, spending his frustration on the unyielding weight of the punching bag and wishing that someone would notice. For Kurt to realize that they aren’t okay. For Cooper to realize that their relationship can’t be fixed by hollow words about wanting to be closer or a warm grip on his shoulder.

When they were younger he’d been known around the neighbourhood as Cooper’s little brother. His whole world had been defined by those words: he wasn’t Blaine to anyone except his mother and father, he was Cooper’s little brother. The silly little kid who tagged along and stumbled through choreography not nearly so gracefully as Cooper did. There had been a time in his life when Blaine had thought there could be nothing worse in the world than being Cooper’s little brother.

Then Cooper had left.

There’s a hit to match every ache and every dark reminder he can’t seem to chase away: the ones that tell him he is small and unimportant, that he’s just a convenient diversion and soon enough he’ll be forgotten and left behind because that’s what people do to him. That’s what Cooper did. That’s what Kurt will do too.

When Kurt comes to him at the end of the week, hanging around the edge of his locker and joking about a stuffed dog as he chastises Blaine on missing their Senior Skip Day, it’s the first real conversation they’ve had which doesn’t include the words New York or NYADA in so long that Blaine thinks that this must be his chance to bring it up. Maybe he just needs to say it, to get it over with already so they both know exactly where they stand.

Maybe it won’t hurt so badly if he knows that it’s coming. If they can just agree in advance.

He decides to test the waters when Kurt slides right into a sermon on the importance of family, of brothers, like Kurt understands anything about what being an Anderson means. Like he knows what it is to grow up in Cooper’s shadow and then have it torn away. What it’s like to be the one who is left behind, pale and exposed and never quite able to match up, the little Anderson boy whose difference is thrown into harsh relief without that shadow to depend on; something he never knew he depended on until it was gone.

“He’s the one who’s leaving,” Blaine replies and the truth of it hangs, weighted, in the air between them, because it’s the closest he’s gotten to saying it since he first tried, that day in the auditorium. _You are too._

They play this game every single time yet Cooper still manages to build his hopes up. He tells himself it could be different, now that he’s older, but nothing has changed. Cooper will go and there’ll be a phone call maybe, starting off once a week, though soon enough it will be once a month and then just on holidays.

And Cooper is waiting for him, wants to talk to him, but if Kurt doesn’t get it, Kurt who knows him better than anyone has even tried to since that stupid dance changed everything; changed him from Cooper’s little brother to that poor little Anderson boy, why would Cooper?

 _Maybe you need to show him,_ Kurt says. _In the best, most honest way you know how._

It stings in a way it probably isn’t meant to. A reminder that the boy who knows him so well still doesn’t get it: that he’s scared. That he knows he’ll be forgotten once the glamour and excitement of the city swallows Kurt up and that there will be boys lining up, waiting for their chance. Boys who are better looking, more interesting, more talented. Opportunities and experiences laid out for Kurt to gorge himself on that are so much bigger than a boy waiting for a phone call in some midwestern town could possibly comprehend.

Blaine is scared because it’s happened before.

No. Kurt doesn’t know a single thing about what being an Anderson means.

\--

Blaine clings to his brother in the middle of the auditorium, unable to swallow back the throbbing that rises in his throat, heavy and swollen and so frustrating because in this moment he isn’t _little brother_ and he isn’t just Blaine, but he is Cooper’s and maybe that isn’t so different from the first.

He’s Cooper’s or he’s Kurt’s or he’s the Warblers’ but he’s never, really, just Blaine.

Truth be told, he isn’t all that good at just being Blaine.

He’d tried before. It ended in his father not quite able to look him in the eye and whispers and laughter and names that make his eyes burn following him through the hallways. It ended in teachers who pretend not to notice and people who just wouldn’t help and feet appearing in his path just waiting to trip him up. It ended in an ambulance ride to the closest emergency room, his nicest slacks and button up being thrown in the trash and a stiff new uniform that hid the worst of the bruising but caught awkwardly over the cast on his wrist. It had been lonely, just being Blaine.

Blaine holds on tighter, buries his face into Cooper’s neck and closes his eyes. Drinks in the warmth and the security that the strength of Cooper’s hold brings with it even as he laughs and scoffs, stupidly grateful when Cooper makes excuses to hold on just a little bit longer.

He doesn’t want to be alone again.

\--

Cooper calls him when his flight lands in LA.

Two nights later when he wants to run through lines for an audition.

Another two nights after that to ask if he’d left his jacket at home.

Again.

Again.

Blaine thinks he sounds lonely, sometimes.

Cooper probably thinks the same thing.

\--

Mike and Brittany are his first choices.

They’re both so unfailingly happy, as far as he can tell. Both of them are facing the same uncertainty come graduation, but they don’t seem all that phased by it. He thinks that if he sticks close to them some of that sunshine might rub off on him and make the hollow feeling he gets in his stomach when he thinks too much disappear.

Mike is quiet and secure and safe, accepting in a way that Blaine still has a hard time coming to terms with, even after the Warblers. Brittany is a wildcard, so unfailingly sure of herself that Blaine thinks he might be a little in awe of her, sometimes. Neither of them seem to expect or even need anything from him.

It even works for a while.

The ease with which they work together is a reminder to himself of what he can have, they might both be seniors but he can make more friends. Other friends. Enough friends to fill every inch of that gaping hole that keeps getting harder and harder to navigate by the day. They are both excited to work on a dance number with him.

If Kurt has NYADA and auditions and New York then Blaine can have this.

It’s hard work, a challenge to keep up with them. He’s panting by the end of it, waiting on the auditorium stage with Brittany and Mike’s arms slung around his shoulders, listening to the unenthusiastic scatter of applause as it quickly fades to nothing.

It stings more than it should, when it’s thrown back in their faces.

So when Mr. Schuester asks him to work on another number, another disco number, a part of him thinks of the resounding chorus of _disco sucks_ that had greeted the result of all of the rehearsal they put in. He thinks that Kurt had been a part of that, that he hadn’t even known how much that stupid song had meant to him, what it meant to him, and he wonders if this is worth it. A few months ago Kurt would have known - he’s certain of it.

He already misses Kurt and he hasn’t even gone yet.

It doesn’t take long to agree. Even if it does mean willingly spending more time with Coach Sylvester.

Kurt may not like disco but Blaine does.

He needs to get used to doing things for himself again.

\--

When he can, he switches out seats in the choir room.

He sits next to Mike or Mercedes or anyone, really. Joe, who acts a little strangely around him sometimes, like he isn’t quite sure if just sitting next to Blaine constitutes as a Heavenly offense. Rory, who is always just so happy to have someone to talk to that it hits just a little too close to home. Sugar, who bombards him with increasingly more invasive questions about his brother whenever he dares to venture too close.

When he sits next to Kurt he gets asked about costumes and appropriate song choices and is singing a cappella overplayed or should he make full use of the band, this time, while he can?

The questions are both harder to answer and harder to avoid the closer it gets to auditions. His answers become shrugs and nods and a silent plea that Kurt will notice him, will want to talk about something that isn’t his impending departure from Blaine’s life.

They don’t talk about anything that matters because the only thing that matters, now, is New York.

Kurt talks about Whitney, as well. To them. They squabble over trivia and they mourn her like they knew her, but whenever Kurt talks to him it’s like someone’s hit repeat on a conversation they’ve had ten, thirty, fifty times already.

Then Mr. Schuester is there, striding into the room and scrawling WHITNEY across the whiteboard. Laying bare every fear that Blaine’s been so desperately trying to keep covered, stripping him of every defense he’s tried to construct with one more horrible theme of the week.

Saying goodbye.

He glances at Kurt, carefully, because maybe he’s just been so busy he hasn’t realized how little time there is.

If anything, he looks excited.

\--

Kurt appears at his locker, bubbly with excitement and practically rambling and it’s all Blaine can do to listen. There’s a jumble of I, me, my that abruptly veers straight into the only conversation they seem to have these days.

Kurt is excited about the theme, about singing whichever Whitney song is the most perfect for his voice and Blaine is pretty sure it wouldn’t make any difference if Kurt was talking to the lockers right now. He wants Blaine’s actual input about as much as Blaine wants to talk about this.

Blaine looks away when Kurt asks him to go to ‘Between the Sheets’, because he isn’t sure he can listen to Kurt tell him how amazing New York is going to be without losing his composure entirely. Not now, when it feels like everything he’s been carrying around with him for months has been dragged right to the surface and scraped raw by Mr. Schuester’s words.

“I can’t today,” he says instead.

Kurt looks disappointed, his, “ _Boo,_ ” of response settling uneasily beneath Blaine’s skin.

The uncharitable part of Blaine that has been waiting for some sign that Kurt even cares that they’re going to be saying goodbye soon protests inside of him as he shuts his locker, mumbling excuses about texting him afterwards before he hurries away.

Kurt has no right to look at him like that. He isn’t the one who’s getting left behind.

\--

Something’s different.

In spite of everything, the distance he’s been trying to keep between himself and reality, Blaine knows it straight away.

Rachel keeps shooting him these strange looks when she thinks he won’t notice.

Kurt doesn’t even look at him at all.

He catches Kurt staring at his phone with these huge smiles on his face, laughing into his fist to stifle the noise at regular intervals through the day.

It probably doesn’t mean anything. It’s probably just someone else from the glee club. Some new inside joke Kurt’s forgotten to tell him about.

There seems to be a lot of those lately.

Blaine does his best to bury it all, to carry on as usual like there’s nothing remarkable about the way Mr. Schuester continues to remind them about the importance of moving on and saying goodbye every chance he gets. Nobody else seems to be bothered by it, Kurt least of all, who barely looks up from his phone long enough to notice who is even singing.

He supposes that nobody else has anything worth hanging on to in this town either.

\--

He doesn’t know why he chooses it.

Blaine hasn’t worn an actual tie in a long time, but that morning his fingers trail over it; stripes of blue and red and white slipping through his fingers as he sifts through his wardrobe, and it’s not quite like the one he’d worn with his Dalton uniform, but it’s close enough that he thinks maybe he can pretend. He’d always felt so much more secure when he wore that uniform, like at least he belonged somewhere.

Kurt had never not noticed him when he was the Warblers’ lead singer, maybe if he wears that skin again it could be the same.

It isn’t.

This isn’t Dalton and he’s nobody’s lead singer anymore.

He thinks he could disappear entirely, sink right through the floor, and nobody at this school would even notice.

In glee club Kurt sits next to Sam, barely even glancing up from his phone from the moment he walks in the room, so Blaine sinks down next to Mercedes across the aisle. His heartbeat thumping loud in his ears and something nervous and sick twisting in his stomach.

Rachel and Santana are killing it and he can’t even enjoy the performance, because out of the corner of his eye he can see Kurt trying not to laugh at the screen of his phone. He wonders if Kurt has even noticed he’s in the same room and what’s so damn funny. If Kurt’s even considered taking a moment away from texting whoever that is to send his boyfriend something that isn’t a vague inquiry about shoe polish.

He wonders if Kurt wants it to hurt. If that’s the point of it all.

It doesn’t hit him until he’s sitting through his next class, his heart still throbbing painfully in his chest, that everyone from the glee club was in that room and that he has no idea now who it is that Kurt’s spending so much time texting.

\--

If it’s important, Kurt would tell him.

That’s what Blaine tells himself as he waits for Kurt to return, listening to the noisy buzz of his phone every minute or so with each new, incoming text. He’s trying to think of ways to bring it up that won’t sound ridiculous or jealous or paranoid or like he doesn’t trust Kurt -

\- Though he really can’t imagine what could be so important that it would require three new texts since Kurt disappeared downstairs with that same distracted look on his face that he’s been wearing for days. Blaine’s starting to wonder why he even bothered coming over.

Kurt’s phone buzzes again and he can’t help it.

He just turns it a little to see the display and the name that shows up makes him pause, fingers pinching delicately at the sides so he won’t smudge the screen.

Chandler.

Blaine doesn’t know any Chandlers. As far as he’d known, neither did Kurt.

The message preview is sitting on the screen, plain as day; _When we go to New York let’s –_

He stares dumbly at the screen, not quite sure when he picked up the phone before he’s (don’t open it don’t open it) opening the message and suddenly there’s a wall of them; text after text after text, each one even flirtier than the last.

But worse than that, he can see Kurt’s responses.

This isn’t just some boy he hadn’t even known existed flirting with his boyfriend.

This is Kurt flirting back.

For days.

And god, how had he been so stupid?

No wonder Kurt was so excited to go to New York, why he couldn’t seem to care less that he’d be leaving Blaine behind. He’s already got a replacement ready and waiting. He’s probably just been biding his time so that he can blame it on college and the distance instead of being the boy who dumped the idiot who transferred schools for him.

Blaine wonders how long it’s been going on – where Kurt met this Chandler guy, if he even knows that Blaine exists.

He doesn’t even hear Kurt until he’s right there, saying something about the cheese platter like he hasn’t spent god knows how long flirting with some other guy while Blaine was in the same room. Laughing at how stupid Blaine must be not to have figured it out.

He looks up, slowly, swallowing hard at the lump in his throat and the sudden burn of tears that he refuses to let slip as he asks, “Who’s Chandler?”

\--

The fight is awful.

Words settle in beneath his skin, accusations piled on top of the furious, throbbing pain that sinks a little deeper with every step he takes away from Kurt’s room. The realization that everything he’s been so scared of has already happened; Who needs New York when Kurt’s already found a way to replace him right here in Lima? Who cares about the threat of distance and goodbyes and graduation when Kurt’s been flirting with some other guy while Blaine is still in the same room?

But it’s okay because Kurt likes the way this Chandler guy makes him feel.

Because this Chandler guy makes Kurt feel special.

Because he compliments him.

Because everything Blaine’s done (given up) for Kurt will never measure up to that tallied score in Kurt’s head of the ways he has been _wronged._

It’s okay because Blaine is a terrible boyfriend by virtue of being all the things Kurt can’t stop himself from unloading on him. Like it simply isn’t enough to know that Kurt likes the way Chandler makes him feel, now Blaine has to know what he did to deserve this too: alpha-gay. Solo-stealer. Every mistake shoved back in his face for proof, remember Rachel, Blaine, remember Sebastian, Blaine. How many times do I have to sit on a stool and watch you perform, Blaine?

It’s okay because Blaine is overreacting; because Blaine’s too stupid to know the difference between texting and cheating. Like he doesn’t know what flirting looks like. Like he doesn’t know what cheating looks like. (Like he doesn’t know what condescension sounds like.)

It’s okay because nothing Blaine can do will ever make up for the criminal offense that is just being him.

And that’s what it always comes down to really. He has never been good enough (and if he’s being honest, he’s never been simply enough) for anyone. Why should it be any different with Kurt?

It trembles through his fingers, the hurt that’s clawing its way up his throat from his chest, something big and painful that sticks there until he feels like he can’t breathe, until he feels the first roll of something warm slipping down his face. He scrubs it away furiously as he scrambles into his car, takes an infuriatingly shaky breath and forces himself to focus before he reverses out of Kurt’s drive.

He won’t let himself look back.

\--

Driving usually clears his head.

It gives him something to focus on, something to do while he tries to process what has happened. Today none of the usual methods seem to be working.

Tears keep escaping down his face, soaking into the collar of his shirt when he isn’t quick enough to wipe them away even though he’s been driving for over half an hour now, around and around in meaningless circles, back and forth through Lima’s streets with nowhere in mind except not there.

He isn’t going home like this. He can’t go home like this. Not after the battle it had taken to get to McKinley in the first place and then being forced to repeat it all over again after everything that happened with his eye.

 _You used to text Sebastian_ all _the time-_

Not that it matters. It wasn’t enough anyway. Not for Kurt.

His phone starts buzzing on his passenger seat, the sound jarring him from his thoughts. He isn’t even sure that he wants to know who it is or what they have to say. What if it’s his mom or dad, calling to ask where he is? Or if it’s Rachel calling to yell at him for hurting Kurt’s feelings? ( _Even Rachel wanted to make out with you._ ) What if it’s Kurt?

Blaine looks for a place to pull over, his mind guiltily replaying the sight of Quinn wheeling carefully through the halls as his phone buzzes and buzzes next to him. Something sick and guilty fills his chest because he shouldn’t be driving - not when his attention is so divided and he feels like he’s somehow betrayed her by doing so. He breathes in sharply in an attempt to calm himself once he’s turned the engine off, fingers clenching hard around the steering wheel because if he answers that phone he isn’t sure he’ll be able to convince whoever’s on the other end of the line that he’s okay.

His phone keeps on buzzing, the screen lighting up as he bows his head over the steering wheel and tries to breathe through it.

It stops and in the silence left behind he can only hear his own unsteady breathing and beyond that the sounds of the road; traffic and people and the rest of the world just carrying on, oblivious to his entire life collapsing in on itself.

 _You don’t know what it’s like being_ your _boyfriend._

His phone starts up again, buzzing across the passenger seat and he grabs it before it skates over the edge, his fingers slipping across the screen as Cooper flashes across the display.

“ _Heeey Blainey_ ,” blares through the speakers, tinny and hollow before Blaine raises it to his ear and tries to calm the tremble in his lips that threatens to turn into something worse. He feels the hot splash of another tear rolling down his cheek instead. “ _You aren’t busy are you? I wanted to run a few ideas past you for my callback tomorrow but if you’re busy I can call you later-_ “

Blaine inhales sharply, realizing just why Cooper thinks he wasn’t answering his phone from the teasing lilt to his voice and tries to force out an answer, anything, but his voice shakes on the attempt, a soft hiccuped, “He- _ey_ Coop,” that’s too quiet, too sad. Not even close to convincing.

He can do better than that.

There’s silence on the other end of the line and he hears the hesitation before Cooper’s asking, “ _Blaine? Hey, what’s going on?_ ”

He sucks in another deep breath and tries again, looking into the rearview and trying to smile, like Cooper would actually be able to tell that he isn’t, and his voice is steadier this time as he says, “I’m fine. It’s okay. I was just – I was driving so I had to pull over.”

There’s another pause, a strange rustling down the line before Cooper speaks again, his voice strangely soft when he asks, “ _Are you sure? You don’t sound-_ ”

Blaine hiccups again, unable to hold back the feeling that he is being choked by the constant track of Kurt’s accusations that are on repeat in his head. Another tear splashes down his cheek and he’s just – god he’s so angry – because how is this okay? How is Kurt making plans for New York with some other boy okay? How is the boy he loves making him feel like this ever supposed to be okay?

“ _Blaine?_ ” Cooper’s voice is a little sharper, tinged with worry. “ _Hey, come on – what’s wrong?_ ”

And just like that it all spills out of him in one angry, tumble of words. He tells Cooper everything, bent over the steering wheel with his eyes squeezed shut, tripping over his own words because if he stops he knows he won’t be able to finish.

Because it hits him now that, without Kurt, there really isn’t anyone else he can talk to.

This faltering, untested attempt at a better relationship with his brother is the only thing he has left to depend on, the only thing left to him that Kurt can’t snatch away.

It isn’t like he can turn to the Warblers now, not after everything that’s happened, and he hasn’t even talked to Sebastian since Regionals.

Will any of the other Glee club members even care? Can they take his side when Kurt is one of them in a way that Blaine simply never will be? If the glee club has to choose sides, chances are he won’t have anyone.

If he isn’t Kurt’s boyfriend or the Warbler’s lead singer, then he only has Cooper, miles and miles away, on the other end of a phone line.

“Coop, I don’t know what to do,” he finally admits, fingers curled tight around the casing of his phone, his voice wavering and frustrated and - angry, he’s so angry.

Because it’s easier to be angry than it is to be hurt. Anger he can deal with. Siphoned off into the number of hits it takes before his arms start to burn and his hands ache. Driven into the stage beneath his planted feet and projected into the back of an auditorium on the backs of words that sound like, _I’m coming up now, coming up now, out of the blue._

Anger is easy; not like the tangled mess of feelings that is building like a storm inside of him; inequal parts of sad and scared and betrayed and lonely and still so frustratingly, hopelessly in love because none of this would hurt half so much if he could just not care.

And maybe that’s it.

Maybe that’s the defining difference between them.

Maybe if he’d held his ground; stuck to Dalton, held on a little tighter to his friends there, he wouldn’t be in this position of having rebuilt his world anew around Kurt’s. Maybe he cares too much. (Maybe Kurt cares too little.)

His voice is choked, miserable as he asks, “What do I do?”

There’s a long pause, before Cooper says, “ _You’re singing Whitney songs in your glee club this week, aren’t you?_ ”

\--

 _He does not deserve to see you hurt,_ Cooper’s voice reminds him as he winds through the crowded halls towards the choir room; his eyes straying down to his toes every so often before he forces them back up. There is no reason why he shouldn’t meet their stares. He has nothing to be ashamed of.

Blaine drags his eyes up, setting his lips in a thin, determined line as another spark of anger goes off inside him, another flare ignited by Cooper’s words searing inside of him, _You are worth more than that._

He perches on a stool, dragged a few feet to the side when he notes the only seats on offer are too close to Kurt for him to bear. He can feel their curious stares as he sits with folded arms, staring dry-eyed at the front of the room and waits for Mr. Schuester to arrive in silence.

Blaine can feel Kurt’s eyes on him, but he knows that whatever he finds on Kurt’s face won’t be an apology.

_I’m really sorry if this made you upset -_

Even if Kurt knew how to apologize, he’d made it entirely clear last night that he didn’t think he’d done anything that warranted one. ( _I feel like I’ve taken crazy pills I didn’t -_ )

And if Kurt can replace him so easily, treat their relationship so carelessly like it’s a joke (treat him like he’s a joke) that will be left in the dust just like the rest of this cowtown, then Blaine doesn’t need him either.

_\- But it’s okay._

If there’s one thing that Blaine knows for certain, it’s that they aren’t okay.

He waits until Mr. Schuester has dropped into a seat before he gets to his feet, ignoring the expressions on the rest of their faces as he says, “This song is for anyone that’s ever been cheated on.”

\--

In his head the song goes like this:

He sings and smirks and sneers like he’s Whitney herself, defiant and utterly in control of his emotions because he does not need Kurt. Because he’d rather be alone than be treated like a child or have his feelings belittled. In his head, these people he’s slowly come to consider friends stand behind him and sing with him. Because it might not be okay, but he thinks it could be. He could be.

In reality, the song goes like this:

His eyes are burning with tears within the first verse, only held in check by the promise he’d made to Cooper that he would not let Kurt see him cry. Every time he looks over he can see the expression on Kurt’s face, disbelieving and annoyed and so stubbornly unmoved. Like he can’t believe this is happening.

Blaine doesn’t sound or feel confident or empowered as he barrels through the chorus, the bemused expressions on the rest of the club’s faces hitting like anvils and he knows he’s losing control; he isn’t defiant or strong or independent; he’s just hurt. And this isn’t proving anything to anyone; he’s not okay and by the expressions on their faces he can tell that he’s convincing absolutely no one that he is.

The only truth to be found in that entire performance isn’t even sung by him.

He hears it still, ringing in his ears, when he turns on his heel and hurries for the door with scattered applause in his ears, biting down on his lip to halt the tears that threaten to overthrow him because it’s not right and it’s not okay and now everyone else knows it too.

_You were making a fool of me._

\--

The weight room is deserted when he gets there, not entirely sure why his feet carried him here when he doesn’t have his gloves or a change of clothes or anything. All he knows is that he can’t be in the choir room now. Not with them all staring at him like that. Instead he huddles in the corner with his phone, his knees tucked up against his chest as it rings and rings in his ear and he waits, his chest tight and his throat throbbing from the attempt to hold it all back, eyes burning with unshed tears because he is not going to cry, not here, not now.

The line picks up and he inhales sharply, attempts to gather himself to speak when it cuts through -

_‘You have reached the phone of Cooper Anderson, please-’_

His phone drops from his fingers, bouncing off the gym mats as he closes his eyes and drops his forehead against his knees, sucking in long unsteady breaths to fight away the tremble working its way up his spine and the hitching of his throat on every exhale.

This isn’t how it was supposed to work.

\--

By the time he slinks out of the locker room, five more attempted calls having gone straight through to Cooper’s voicemail, the hallways have gone quiet.

The hurt seems to have solidified, slid back down his throat into his chest and stayed there, an anchor to keep him weighted as the rest of his world reels aimlessly around him. He feels like he’s been cut adrift with nothing to steer himself with.

He’s spent the entirety of this past year weighing his every decision on Kurt’s opinions and Kurt’s desires and Kurt’s feelings. The disconnect is abrupt, jarring in its reality, because most of the time he does his best not to remember who he was before Kurt was in his life and a part of him is starting to wonder if that is really a good thing at all. Was he such a terrible person, before?

Is he such a terrible person now that he deserves this?

 _You have no idea what it’s like being_ your _boyfriend._

Kurt had asked him to transfer. Has it really been so bad? Has he really made Kurt so unhappy this year that he can’t wait to get out of here? Does he make Kurt feel that bad about himself that he’d go find some other guy to flirt with and flatter him and then rub it in Blaine’s face so he knows just how terrible he is at being someone’s boyfriend? At being Kurt’s boyfriend.

That’s all he is to these people. He doesn’t know how to be the person he was before, not at McKinley. Not when it’s so much easier to be someone else’s version of himself. He isn’t strong or brave or much of anything here. He’s Kurt’s boyfriend or he’s Cooper’s little brother (and not the Warbler’s anything, not anymore) but the Blaine he used to be seems like nothing more than a scared, lonely little kid.

Maybe he isn’t quite so different as he thought.

\--  
[part two](http://xsaturated.livejournal.com/34839.html)


	2. Chapter 2

Once upon a time Blaine had thought that he just wasn’t cut out for love.

He tells Kurt once that he isn’t very good at romance, but that isn’t really the truth.

The truth is that he falls too easily, too fast, throws his heart recklessly to whoever he thinks should hold it and blindly trusts that their grip is sure and they will treat it well. He doesn’t do things by halves, doesn’t hold back, because he has always wanted so very, very much that he never has known how to.

Now Blaine is starting to think he knows where the problem really lies, why his heart keeps getting handed back to him in pieces: his true problem isn’t that he is bad at love - it’s that he’s bad at being loved.

You have no idea what it’s like being your boyfriend, Kurt had told him and it made everything just a little clearer.

You have no idea what it’s like being your brother. Your father. Your mother. Your friend.

The problem isn’t that he loves them more than they love him. It’s that he makes it so hard for people to love him. He expects too much, needs too much. Is greedy for attention and affection and anything they will give him.

He thinks that he gets it now though.

Nobody is careful with a careless boy’s heart.

\--

The next morning he’s bleary-eyed and exhausted, (Cooper had forgotten the time difference again and rung him the moment he’d seen the number of missed calls on his phone) so he doesn’t even see Kurt coming as he shuffles down the corridor, trying to fit his biology text into his satchel, until Kurt’s already caught him by the arm and tugged him into an empty classroom.

There is nothing apologetic about the set of his lips and something maddeningly superior in the way Kurt looks at him as he asks, “Are you done now?”

There’s silence, Blaine staring back at him without any idea of what to say to that. Kurt has always had a talent for making him feel like he’s two feet tall when they disagree, like his opinions don’t matter, but this isn’t just some minor disagreement and Blaine isn’t just going to give in this time. It hits him as he stands, unable to find the words to reply, that Kurt is angry.

Kurt sighs, like Blaine’s silence in itself is some form of protest and asks, “Can we talk about this like -”

He’s cut off by the loud, telltale buzz of his phone in his pocket and Blaine flinches, jerking his arm away because he doesn’t even have to see the look on Kurt’s face to know. “You’re still texting him.”

It isn’t a question but the sudden set of Kurt’s jaw, utterly defiant, is answer enough. “It’s just texting Blaine, it’s no different than you texting Sebastian-”

“I can’t believe you-,” Blaine begins, but his voice deserts him entirely when Kurt actually rolls his eyes at him. 

Blaine watches him, his tongue feeling like lead as he looks for a sign that Kurt even realizes how much this has hurt him, but whatever it is that Kurt’s feeling it’s well-hidden behind the defiant tilt of his chin. 

There’s another buzz from Kurt’s pocket and Blaine inhales sharply, staring hard at the floor as he asks, “Does he even know you have a boyfriend?”

He gets only silence for an answer.

“Right,” Blaine murmurs to himself, hugging his arms close to his chest as he turns on his heel and heads for the door. “I have to go. I’ve got a class.”

“Blaine,” Kurt calls after him as he pushes open the door, but anything else he has to say is lost to the noise of the hallway.

\--

The next ambush comes later that afternoon, though in all fairness, it can hardly be considered an ambush when they’ve been walking to the same class together every day for most of the year.

Mike just nods at him, his hands curled around the straps of his backpack as they try to maneuver through the halls. “Hey man.”

Blaine nods back, fingers flexing around the strap of his satchel as he prepares for the attack he’s been waiting for all day. At first he’d thought it would be Mercedes - but she’d just sort-of smiled sadly at him when he’d seen her in the hallway that morning and hadn’t said anything. Then he’d thought it would be Rachel, but he’s yet to run into her.

Instead it’s Mike who shrugs his shoulders a little before he says, “So, yesterday.”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Blaine replies, raising a finger in warning and jerking his chin up pointedly before he even knows he’s doing it.

Mike raises his eyebrows at him, shrugs again for good measure and says, “It seemed like something you’d want to talk about.”

Blaine narrows his eyes a little, the leather of his satchel squeaking in protest beneath the crush of his fingers as he replies, “Well, I don’t.”

Mike tips his head a little in acknowledgment, like it isn’t a big deal, and they keep walking in silence. 

Blaine worries his lower lip between his teeth as the silence drags, the noise of the hallway fading out beneath how utterly relaxed Mike seems in the fact of it all, before he eventually blurts out, “He’s cheating on me.”

“I kind of gathered that from the speech and the song,” Mike replies evenly, though his lips quirk just a little as if to tell him to keep talking. 

“He doesn’t - I don’t think he even sees it as cheating,” Blaine continues, his eyes dipping slowly towards his shoes because he can’t even think about it, can’t remember that conversation they had in Kurt’s room, without feeling like he came out of it as something less than he was before.

“Maybe he doesn’t,” Mike says. “Did you ask him?”

Blaine’s fingers clench harder around the leather of his satchel and he stares intently at the toes of his shoes where he thinks he can see scuff marks.

This is all innocent. 

He doesn’t have to.

He knows that Mike probably feels like he should stay neutral - that the New Directions face dramatic upheavals in their relationships all the time and try to weather friendships through the unrest - this must seem so small to them, so petty, but he can’t let it go. He’d never believed that Kurt could be so dismissive of his feelings, of him, really, (though the part of him that still bears the wounds of the conversation following Rachel’s party, the one that he does his best to forget happened most days, reminds him that he should know better) and that almost stings more than the knowledge that there is a Chandler.

That he’s still texting that Chandler.

If it was just texting, it wouldn’t hurt so much. But it’s so much more than that.

Kurt knew it would hurt him and he did it anyway.

“Maybe there’s an explanation. You could give him the chance to explain himself,” Mike offers as they reach the door to their classroom, shrugging a little as he enters. “It couldn’t hurt, right?”

It already has.

But Blaine tries to smile anyway, like it’s okay, and it must work because Mike nods to himself, like he’s done his good deed for the day and sets to making a miniature fort for his pencils out of his textbooks. 

He wishes everything else in his life could be so easy.

\--

It’s not that he’s ignoring Mike’s advice.

Mike is the closest thing to a best friend he has at this school - he’s smart and he’s dependable and he’s probably the only guy in the New Directions whose relationship advice Blaine can actually respect. He’d been the first guy to try and include him when Finn had been doing everything in his power to do the opposite.

Blaine’s almost certain that it was Mike’s influence that settled some of the other guys’ attitudes towards him - those first weeks at McKinley had been far lonelier than he’d been willing to admit to anybody. Mike’s a nice guy, the only guy that Blaine thinks is really looking out for him, and he seems to think that Kurt deserves the chance.

And after everything they’ve been through he at least owes Kurt that.

Not that there aren’t doubts creeping in, things that make him wonder if he is overreacting. Maybe Kurt is upset too. Maybe there’s a reason why he needed Chandler. Maybe this is payback for everything that happened with Sebastian. Maybe it is the same thing. Maybe if Blaine wasn’t such hard work, Kurt never would have had to look elsewhere. Maybe he really is that bad at being someone’s boyfriend. 

Maybe he deserves this.

It’s not like any of it will matter in the end - no matter what he does or doesn’t do, Kurt is going to be leaving him behind anyway.

Maybe it would be better if it ended now, if he just accepts that he isn’t enough for Kurt rather than waiting for it all to blow up in his face later, when Kurt finds another Chandler in New York who he isn’t content with just texting.

Maybe Kurt’s just been waiting for his opportunity to get away from him; maybe he’s bored and wants something new, something exciting. Something to match the soon-to-come upheaval of his life.

He makes it to the choir room early enough to strategically seat himself right in the back, up in a corner to minimise the opportunities for people to sit next to him. He doesn’t know what to expect from any of them, really. The reactions so far have been minimal, like nobody seems to have taken any of this seriously.

Like even now none of them really take him seriously.

It’s easy to appear distracted while everyone else files in and takes their seats. A few of them shoot curious looks his way and Rachel looks like she’s about to burst out of her skin, turning in her seat to shoot him what he assumes are supposed to be meaningful looks that he pretends not to see.

Santana drops into the seat next to him and he doesn’t know what to make of the barest raise of her eyebrows that almost seems friendly when she glances over at him. Mercedes sinks down in the seat in front of him and Mike next to her, glancing over his shoulder to nod at Blaine before he turns back to Tina.

Kurt seizes the floor immediately after Mr. Schuester’s arrival, his face set and determined. Blaine knows how excited Kurt had been for this week’s assignment, for songs that would perfectly fit his voice for once, so the sight of him stalking to the front of the room to claim the microphone shouldn’t make him so uneasy, but it does.

Blaine has always loved Kurt’s voice; a mixture of strength and beauty and something utterly unique; an amalgamation of all the things that Blaine sees in Kurt himself. When Kurt sings it’s like the spotlight renders him completely transparent; everything he feels and everything he is put on display for all to see. But when the band guys count in and the music starts there isn’t any great revelation to be learned, not from Kurt staring directly at him and leading with words that feel like an accusation; I’ll never change all my colours for you.

And it isn’t fair - that isn’t fair, he isn’t asking Kurt to change for him - it’s not like he ever asked Kurt to rearrange his life (to transfer schools for him, leave his friends and everything he knows behind), he doesn’t slip bronzer into Kurt’s moisturizer or pick through his wardrobe every time he comes over to discard the things he doesn’t like. 

Kurt won’t change for anybody, least of all him, but Blaine is starting to think that maybe Kurt is changing him. That he has been changing for a while now, trying to make the pieces fit, and he doesn’t know if he likes what that says about him. About them.

Suddenly it’s like that choir room is ten times smaller, like he’s trapped in his seat, pinned down by the weight of Kurt’s stare. It’s a beautiful love song in it’s own right, a song that Blaine has never dared imagine anyone would sing to him. Blaine has sung his share of love songs to great success and spectacular burning failure but nobody, really, has ever sung to him like that.

(You know I’m in love with a -)

He can practically feel it, every time Mike’s head turns toward him like he’s saying, see?, every lyric that sinks into him like thorns and claws up his throat until his eyes are stinging. He’d always thought that love songs were supposed to make you feel good, feel cherished, feel wanted. Being serenaded was something that was supposed to be romantic. But Kurt looking at him like that - pinning him with his eyes into a corner while their friends turn to look, to get their fill of how utterly terrified Blaine suddenly is by all of this, of words that loom like threats between them (don’t make me close one more door) - this doesn’t feel good.

This is Kurt stripped bare, but it isn’t fixing anything. No more than singing out his anger had made him feel any better. He wonders if this is how Kurt felt, with the weight of all those eyes and expectations loaded onto him.

Blaine doesn’t know what Kurt is hoping to accomplish with this, but when the music fades there are tears clouding his eyes and his hesitant claps echo the applause of the others. Whatever the intention, Kurt had, at least, sounded spectacular. Just like he said he would.

But what Blaine does know is that whatever Kurt was trying to say with that song, it wasn’t an apology.

\--

He feels like everyone is watching him, just waiting for the reaction that he doesn’t quite know he has in him.

What is he supposed to feel, after that?

Nothing has been fixed, nothing has changed. He doesn’t know what, exactly, they all seem to be expecting as they loiter around the room, slowly drifting towards the door after Mr. Schuester dismisses them.

Kurt hasn’t made any pretense at getting out of his seat, he’s glaring pointedly at stragglers as Blaine hesitates by his own chair, toying with the leather strap of his satchel and trying to figure out what, exactly, he’s supposed to be feeling.

It was a beautiful song, but that’s really all it was.

“Well?” Kurt asks when Rachel rounds out the last of the stragglers, still casting curious looks over her shoulder while Finn calls out for her to hurry.

Blaine bites his lip, drags his satchel up over his shoulder and glances warily over in Kurt’s direction, stepping down through the rows of chairs to reach the front row but not moving any closer. His voice is guarded as he replies, “Well, what?”

“Did you like it?” Kurt asks, a hint of a smile on his lips as he turns towards Blaine, head cocked to the side and something eager bubbling beneath the calm. “I know it was a risky choice, being one of her seminal hits and all, but-”

“It was brilliant,” Blaine cuts him off, curling his arms carefully around himself and trying not to notice the way Kurt brightens immediately, lips crawling wide into something that’s too much like relief. “You were brilliant.”

It would be so easy to let this be it. To go back to what they were and not talk about it - to wait for the next thing and the next thing and to not fix anything. So easy. He can’t let that happen. 

Blaine’s eyes fix on the toes of his shoes, the frustrating burn of tears that seems ever-present the last couple of days returning as he says, “It doesn’t change anything, Kurt.”

He can hear Kurt’s sharp intake of breath, like he’d honestly believed that what’s happened between them could be fixed with the right song. 

“I sang it for you, Blaine,” Kurt replies, his voice straining to stay even and Blaine can hear him getting to his feet. “I get it now, okay. I understand that you’re jealous and-”

Jealous.

His eyes jerk upwards, meeting the look on Kurt’s face that projects understanding and patience like Blaine is a child that’s in the midst of a prodigious temper tantrum. 

How many times have I -

He can’t do this now. Not with Kurt looking at him like that, like he still just doesn’t get it at all, can’t even comprehend why Blaine would be upset about what he’s done - doing still, as of that morning -

Blaine needs to think. To figure out what he’s feeling - what he wants.

“I can’t do this now,” tumbles dazedly out of his mouth, a hand dragging roughly down his face as he forces himself to turn and let his feet lead him out of the door. 

Blaine isn’t good at talking about what he’s feeling, about what he’s afraid of, but he knows now that no song will ever be the right one - not if Kurt isn’t listening. However hard it might be, maybe this time he needs to just say it instead.

\--

As it turns out, he doesn’t get the chance.

\--

He’s on edge from the moment he gets the message to report to Ms. Pillsbury’s office.

The entire time he’s walking towards her office (dawdling, really, if he’s being honest) he can’t help but wonder who it had been to get concerned this time. Maybe it was Mr. Schuester - he seemed to like to dip his toes into the pool of concerned teacher every now and then. He runs through options as he walks until he finally can’t put it off any longer - but when he enters the office he also finds his answer.

Kurt looks over briefly from where he’s already seated before his eyes dart away again, like he isn’t entirely sure he wants to see what Blaine’s thinking.

Blaine can’t exactly blame him for that.

He has vivid memories of half a dozen offices just like this one - of people with nice smiles and hollow, sweet words who refused to do anything to actually help him when he needed them. In the aftermath there had been still more of them - all sympathetic eyes and bland smiles and ‘how does that make you feel?’ 

Blaine hates it. Hates the way they say they will help but none of them actually do anything. He hates how trapped he feels here - that Kurt has tricked him into coming here. He’s spent enough time in offices like these to last a lifetime. But still he sinks carefully into his seat, clutching his satchel awkwardly in both hands for a moment before he places it down next to his chair.

His shoulders curl in on themselves of their own accord and he determinedly refuses to look at Kurt, sitting two feet away in a chair of his own and looking far too proud of himself for Blaine to handle. He keeps his eyes fixed ahead instead, on where Ms. Pillsbury is smiling nervously at him.

The problem is that he thinks he could like Ms. Pillsbury. She is genuinely nice and she’d always been so supportive of the glee club and he’d loved working with her for West Side Story - she’d even talked Kurt and Rachel down from that bizarre fixation they’d both had on Julliard at the start of the year, the one that Blaine had learned quickly not to comment on. She genuinely seems to want to help, even when she doesn’t exactly know the best way to do it.

(He sometimes wishes there’d been a Ms. Pillsbury back then. Maybe things would have ended differently.)

But none of that can stop his defences from rising, all the tricks he remembers from after spilling off his tongue, every question met with one of his own, his throat tight and his eyes fixed at some point over her shoulder. 

Kurt’s presence looms to his right, something he can’t ignore no matter how hard he tries. He feels trapped again, pinned down and forced to listen to Kurt’s version of what they need. Couples counselling.

Sometimes it feels like Kurt is just playing at the way he thinks a relationship should work instead of trying to be in one.

“Brutal honesty is the cornerstone of any relationship,” Ms. Pillsbury tells them with a hopeful smile and Blaine can’t stop himself.

He remembers every ugly word that Kurt threw at him during that fight, every accusation that’s settled in beneath his skin. Every reminder of why he isn’t good enough. Why he’s to blame for all of this.

\- I sang you a song to express my regret.

Kurt can’t even say that he’s sorry. Is it really that hard?

He’s rambling - trying to ignore the way Kurt sits, stiff-backed in his chair and trades looks with Ms. Pillsbury like this is all something he’d planned ahead of time with her. Blaine feels like he’s just being humored, like his words are rolling off of Kurt like they mean nothing until -

“- I don’t like that with every conversation we always end up talking about NYADA.”

Kurt stiffens, turning in his chair to actually look at him for the first time since they started talking and it’s like Blaine can’t stop - like every fear and doubt he has about New York, about Kurt leaving him behind, is finally escaping. Everything he’d tried to tell him that day on stage - if I could find a way to see this straight, I’d run away - tumbling from his lips until his eyes are stinging and his chest is aching and Kurt -

Kurt is hugging him and it’s just so easy to pretend that everything’s alright again.

He can pretend that empty promises about daily Skype calls and visits to New York every weekend could actually be a possibility. That Kurt won’t lose himself to the city and the life he’s been waiting for forever while Blaine gets left in the dust.

This time, when Blaine squeezes his eyes shut to stop the tears in their tracks (he’s so tired of crying), while he bleeds words like, you’re the love of my life, and Kurt promises him things he can’t hope to keep, he thinks that maybe it could be okay. Maybe he could make it okay.

Maybe he just needs to try harder.

\--

It’s like a running checklist in his mind:

When was the last time you complimented me?

Maybe if he tries he can stop it in the act. The text messages are the easy part (if he closes his eyes he can still see the wall of them on Kurt’s phone. Flirty and cutesy and increasingly more daring each time.) 

He doesn’t repeat them - the words that burn behind his eyelids - but he can summon words of his own. Maybe he isn’t as clever or as good at making Kurt laugh as Chandler had been, but he can try. He can make himself into what Kurt wants from him.

He can be enough.

Or, told me how special I was?

“It isn’t from Chandler,” Kurt assures him as he reaches for his phone and Blaine waits, his mouth strangely dry and his heart pounding uncomfortably as Kurt opens it.

Blaine knows it isn’t from Chandler - he thinks he might have even succeeded when Kurt smiles down at his phone, back up at him, before he asks, “But what about glee?”

HIs heart thumps loud in his ears, something clawing its way through his insides as he makes his case built on their excuses because he can be enough if Kurt will just let him - if Kurt will let him show him. He knows he can. He may not be able to make Kurt laugh like Chandler can but he can do this -

Every look Kurt gives him feels like it means something more - everything feels rawer now, without the distance he’s been cultivating to protect himself. Every hurt is a little sharper. Every feeling a little bigger. He feels like he could burst, standing and waiting for the verdict.

Nobody will be there - they’d all talked about it earlier - but it doesn’t matter.

Kurt says it’s about glee, about how much time is left, how can he waste that? But it isn’t hard to see what he’s really saying.

Not good enough. Try again.

You don’t know what it’s like being your boyfriend.

\--

They fall back into the well-worn patterns that define their relationship; coffee and talking about the things that don’t matter and the things that do (Kurt’s audition and NYADA and New York) and it’s like none of it ever happened. Blaine determinedly doesn’t flinch when Kurt’s phone buzzes in his pocket and pushes himself to be better - more supportive, more attentive, more interested - like it will drown out the words that cycle through his mind whenever it gets quiet or Kurt looks at him with one of those indecipherable expressions of his.

It feels like nothing and everything has changed and he doesn’t know why that bothers him so much.

When he tells Cooper that they’re together again, instead of the congratulations he expected there is silence. The line crackles between them and he can hear Cooper shifting around, something that sounds like a sigh and Blaine opens his mouth to say something - to repeat the promises Kurt made or tell him about the song or something - but Cooper cuts him off, hesitantly asking, “Are you sure about this, Squirt?"

Nobody else even questioned it. Blaine had thought it was because everyone had thought it was obvious they would stay together - that it was just his fear of losing Kurt that had made him question his relationship - but all of that quails under the realization that he doesn’t know how to answer that.

They talk around it for the rest of the call. Cooper regales him with a story about his latest audition and Blaine updates him on the latest choir room gossip that doesn’t involve him or Kurt but the entire conversation feels leaden, heavy beneath the weight of that question still hanging over him.

It’s when they’re saying their goodbyes, Blaine digging his fingers into the covers on his bed and digging his teeth into his lower lip like it will keep it in before he says, “I want to be sure.”

There’s silence, Cooper’s breathing a slow and soothing anchor in the background of the sudden tailspin of his thoughts, before he says, “I don’t know about Kurt, Blainey, but I know that you’ll be okay.”

And it isn’t the smoothest or the cleverest thing that Cooper has ever said to him, but Blaine thinks it might just mean the most.

\--

NYADA auditions are on them before they even know it; Kurt’s furious rehearsal schedule and constant conferences with Rachel meaning that time (time Blaine’s already counting, ticking off in the back of his mind like some morbid countdown) is stretched thin. He can never quite decipher what it is that Kurt wants from him when he asks for his opinion - if he wants reassurances or compliments or honest advice - so he aims for somewhere in between and hopes for the best. 

The more elaborate his Phantom routine gets, the more Blaine wonders what role he’s supposed to be playing on any given day. Auditions are too close now to let Kurt freak out over them. Blaine is worried when Kurt abruptly changes his mind, seemingly on a whim, and discards the long hours of rehearsal he’s put in.

Not that Kurt actually needs his help in the end, he never has. His audition is a tour de force of everything that makes Kurt Hummel special and Blaine isn’t the least bit surprised by how impressed the NYADA scout is. Kurt has been waiting a very long time for people to see how brilliant he is, to recognize him for his many talents.

Seeing that finally happen for him is a moment of pure triumph, he claps his hands over his mouth so he won’t laugh, beaming up at the stage because this audition had meant so much to Kurt and he just killed it. He squeezes his hold on Rachel’s hand, beaming across at her to find her smiling right back at him.

Blaine wishes her good luck and tries to savor this moment where everything feels so good, so right, and for the first time in a long time he doesn’t have to pretend at all.

It doesn’t last.

\--

Rachel is devastated.

Blaine doesn’t know what to do, he sits with a sinking heart in the auditorium as a witness to her obvious heartbreak and he feels like he can’t breathe for the weight of it. He’s just witnessed his boyfriend’s greatest triumph and he wants to be happy for him, to celebrate with him because that’s what a good boyfriend should do. That’s what’s expected of him (what he had wanted to do and he’s been trying so hard to meet Kurt’s expectations, to be the best boyfriend in the world because then maybe - maybe) but there’s a part of him that wants to do something.

She may be Kurt’s best friend and Finn’s girlfriend but she’s his Maria and he should know what to say to her. He should be able to tell her that this isn’t it for her dreams. 

He’d made plans to celebrate tonight, to have dinner and feed off of the enthusiasm of success, to try and cast off some of the shadows that still follow their every move. They were going to dress up, he was going to give Kurt his victory parade and then they were going to peel off every last layer and celebrate again.

Kurt celebrates the night of his audition with his dad over dinner. He tells Blaine he doesn’t want to rub it in Rachel’s face - there’ll be plenty of time to celebrate when the wound isn’t quite so raw and it makes sense, really. Blaine thinks that if he had the kind of relationship with his father that Kurt does, he’d want to celebrate with him too.

Instead Blaine spends the night of Kurt’s audition in the choir room with almost the entire male contingent of the New Directions, sifting through the stack of flashcards he’d made for his European History class in his sophomore year with that same heavy sense of helplessness in his chest and trying to drill something into Puck’s head, no matter how defeated he may seem.

He can’t change what happened with Rachel and he can’t celebrate with his boyfriend, but maybe he can help Puck instead.

\--

They do celebrate another night.

They dress up even though they’re just going to Breadstix and Kurt orders the cheesecake but he only snaps his fingers twice before he sees Blaine looking and places his hands carefully back on the table. Blaine’s pretty sure their waitress didn’t even notice.

He doesn’t stay over at Kurt’s place - it’s the weekend and Kurt’s dad is already peeking through the curtains by the time they park in the driveway. Blaine kisses Kurt anyway, quickly, before he disappears out the car door with an apologetic smile, shrugs and says his dad’s been clingy lately, with graduation coming up, and that he’d see Blaine on Monday.

Blaine waits until Kurt’s inside before he turns the engine back on and carefully reverses back onto the street, wondering why he isn’t happier.

You aren’t going to lose me.

Sometimes he has to remind himself of that.

\--

He probably should have guessed that this was how it would happen.

Every school dance he has attended has heralded some awful event in his life.

It really shouldn’t surprise him that this one would too.

\--

Blaine spends an entire week making excuses.

It isn’t just about the hair, not really.

It’s about wanting to be safe. It’s about wanting to not stand out, to keep low and not draw attention to himself in an environment that still visits his nightmares, sometimes.

He wants to look good. To feel good. To not worry about whether Brittany likes the way he looks or not, because that shouldn’t matter.

He wants to go to his junior prom and prove something to himself - but not like this.

\--

Kurt has his own reasons for not wanting to go. His very own vault of memories that he doesn’t want to revisit and Blaine understands that. Just like he’s sure Kurt understands his reasons.

The anti-prom shouldn’t feel like a consolation prize.

Nobody else gets it, they think he’s vain or silly or selfish or all of the above for protesting Brittany’s rule. It doesn’t matter though - they can blame it on vanity or whatever they want - he’d take their scorn over their pity any day.

He doesn’t want them to know.

\--

It’s like a nightmare come to life.

Like living that night all over again. 

The staring. The whispering. The laughter.

He can feel their eyes, digging into him, that burning shame that sinks into his skin once again. Because he’ll never be able to have what they have - just one night of something safe and normal and happy - that isn’t tainted by sneers and the far too familiar hot wave of humiliation.

All he wants - all he ever wanted from this stupid prom - is to fit in. To be normal. To dance with his boyfriend and look nice and not have to feel like every move he makes is being watched and judged. 

It isn’t the same - he knows it isn’t the same - but it doesn’t stop the panic that starts to crawl in his insides, the aching that sinks into his bones and spikes across his ribs, at his collarbone, his wrist. 

Except somehow this is worse - amidst the crowd he sees Mike turn his head away to hide a smile, Tina’s shocked eyes. Faces he recognizes and that he somehow imagined would have his back, that wouldn’t care no matter how ridiculous he looks, and god, it’s exactly the same. It’s being laughed at and humiliated once again for something he can’t change because somebody doesn’t like it. It’s being treated like a joke, all over again.

He doesn’t want to be here. Not like this.

They think it’s stupid. He’s seen it on their faces all week, Santana giving him looks because he agreed to the anti-prom and every other person who don’t know a single thing about how hard it was just to walk through those doors last year only to have all that convincing, every moment of trying to psych himself up and telling himself it would be different this time, thrown back in his face because he isn’t allowed to have those things. Having to watch Kurt have his prom dreams smashed to pieces as well. 

He hates the way they look at him like he’s being ridiculous and petty and childish when they have no idea, none of them do, what it takes to even make it through those doors without knowing what will be waiting for him when he leaves.

Kurt and Rachel had laughed at him because they don’t get it - it’s easier for them to focus on their own troubles, on the weight of everything they have to deal with. All week it had been the same. The small, shared smiles when they think he can’t see them because he’s being ridiculous. They don’t understand that it hits a little too close to the wounds that have never really healed, that he buries as deep as he can because he can’t bear to be the poor little Anderson boy any longer. 

Maybe Kurt should get it, maybe he should notice. Maybe Blaine hoped that he’d made the connection - that being told that he won’t even be allowed in the door of his first real prom, his prom, unless he changes himself - isn’t just about his hair. It’s about being told that he isn’t allowed - that he isn’t good enough or handsome enough - by someone he thought was his friend. By someone he thought would have his back.

Instead there are people staring and laughing and he thinks he might throw up because he just wanted to fit in and now Kurt is staring at him in the exact same way that they are and Blaine knows he looks ridiculous and that his hair is a mess, that it will never be effortlessly perfect like Cooper’s, but it’s worse than all the rest of it because he may have never wanted any of these people to see him like this but he never thought he’d see Kurt look at him like that.

He just wants to leave.

To go home and pretend that he never even tried, because why did he? Maybe Brittany is allowed to dance with her girlfriend, to curl her eyelashes and straighten her hair, to use as much hairspray as she likes because apparently it’s okay for her to tell everyone else what to do, just like it’s okay for her to single him out, to make him feel unworthy because she doesn’t like the way he looks and for no one else to even care. But he doesn’t have to stand here and listen to her and Kurt tell him exactly how stupid he looks. To laugh at him just like everyone else is.

It’s stupid. He knows it’s stupid.

But it isn’t fair either.

Instead he has to stand and listen to her tell him he looks bad enough that she’ll break the rules, just for him. That all of this humiliation was worth nothing in the end except to ruin his night. To remind him that he will never be able to have that one stupid, perfect night because people like her will always be there to ruin it for him. 

He can’t even bring himself to look at either of them when he turns away, because all he wants is to get out of this gym. To find somewhere he can hide for the next fifty years and pretend like this night never happened because this might not matter to them, this isn’t Kurt getting coronated and in a moment Brittany will run off and dance with her girlfriend and come tomorrow she won’t even remember it even happened, but this is going to lodge itself into his skin. 

This is going to join all the other aches in his bones, Kurt telling him that this is the real him when it’s not, this isn’t who he is. This is what they’ve made him. And he’s just so tired of being told who he is, who he should be, what he’s allowed to be. Of Kurt telling him who he is.

He wants to push Kurt away, to tell him that this isn’t him. That he doesn’t want to spend the rest of the night with people staring at him like that - that he’d rather have a prom photo that won’t remind him of how he feels right at this moment. That he’d rather leave than listen to Kurt call him his bushy-haired boyfriend or Borat, like it’s funny. Like he hasn’t spent half his life being told how horrible his hair is and being called every name under the sun.

He wants to tell him that he doesn’t appreciate being talked down to like he’s some silly little boy.

He wants to leave.

It isn’t the same as that night. It doesn’t end in blood and an emergency room and nothing ends up hurt, really, other than his feelings and the wave of humiliation he feels whenever he hears laughter in the halls or feels someone looking at him. Whenever Kurt thinks it’s funny to call him Borat again. 

They dance the last, and his only, dance and they get their photo taken and when he gets his copy he shoves it into the bottom of a desk drawer and tries to forget it exists. He’s gotten so good at pretending, recently.

If he just pretends hard enough, it’s like it never happened.


	3. Chapter 3

\--

Amidst all the drama that surrounds the lead up to Nationals it’s easy to sink, unnoticed, into the background.

He sits in the choir room and stays quiet, listens to Tina stand up for herself and wonders how long it’s been coming. How long she’s been waiting for someone to notice her. She gets told to cool off, to take one for the team, to stop being selfish and he wonders if that’s how the other Warblers had felt when he was the one getting all the solos. If it’s how Kurt feels whenever Blaine opens his mouth in the choir room.

Do you know how many times I’ve had to sit on a stool and - 

Her protests don’t change anything but Blaine’s starting to think that it’s just how McKinley operates - nobody really notices, even when it’s being screamed in their faces.

They drift through preparations - he listens while Kurt rants about Coach Sylvester’s insane plan for Nationals and when it gets too much he lets Kurt drag him around the mall for a while because that’s how he de-stresses. It gets cut off short when they have to fish Tina out of a fountain and then take her to the hospital when she comes out dazed and muttering about Rachel Berry.

It feels like he should be more excited about this - about Nationals - but none of it feels real. 

Later it will feel like it all passed in a moment; one big blur of ridiculous schemes and pre-competition jitters that turned to shoving and yelling until they finally - finally get to the stage. The stage is where he feels like he’s at home, where everything stands still for that perfect indeterminate amount of time where they own the entire audience. He has no real part to play - he isn’t carrying the weight of the team on his back - he’s just there.

One moment they’re singing the next they’re standing on stage, sweating beneath the heat of the stage lights, his fingers slick where they’re wrapped around Kurt’s in a vice-like grip, the thump-tha-thump-tha-thump of his heart as they wait and wait and wait and suddenly, just like that, they’re National champions.

He remembers laughing and jumping and hugging and everything turning to chaos as confetti rains down around them, settling in Kurt’s hair as they all fall together, as Mr. Schuester hoists their trophy into the air and everything in that moment is perfect.

When they get back to the hotel he sneaks off to call Cooper, plucking confetti from his hair as he leans against the bathroom sink and listens to the phone ring. He can hear laughter and yelling through the closed door, his own heart still beating wildly with the frenzy of excitement that’s consumed them all since the announcement and he can’t stop grinning at his own reflection, flushed and elated as the line picks up.

He blurts, “We won Coop,” before Cooper can even say hello.

There’s a laugh in response, the sound of rustling before Cooper scoffs, “Of course you did.”

\--

The celebrations continue the entire trip home, the bus filled with laughter and excitement and the sheer elation of success. Their first hesitant steps through the doors at McKinley with their trophy in hand feel like a test, but not even the memory of their school’s endless supply of hostility towards the glee club can hold out against the wave of celebration that meets them.

It feels like something out of a movie - guys in hockey jerseys are throwing confetti in the hallways, guys in letterman jackets are seizing them into hugs and laughing. He gets a little lost in the chaos, bewildered as a girl in a Cheerios uniform kisses him on the cheek and smiling when Santana stops in the middle of the hallway to dip Brittany low and kiss her, right there in the midst of everyone, and nobody even looks twice.

He looks around for Kurt, his smile so wide that his face is aching and feeling so stupidly, ridiculously happy that he thinks he could burst but he can’t see him. He’s somewhere beyond the tangle of students congratulating them, beyond Rory getting dragged off by two girls and Tina and Mike stumbling into the lockers in their celebrations.

Only moments ago he’d been just a step behind him, close enough to reach out and drag him into a kiss the way that everyone else seems to be doing. His smile slips a little, craning his head to try and spot him through the rain of confetti and excitement, but he can’t see him anywhere.

\--

There’s no slowing down, now that they’re home.

Even their victory tastes a little sour on his tongue, sometimes, tempered as it is by the final assignment they are given for the year.

Goodbye.

Blaine wonders where the year has gone, how time has slipped away from him like this as they all get separated into their groups and suddenly it’s like it’s all so much clearer, junior - senior. 

He thinks that maybe now, more than ever, they really need to talk.

\--

That word, written on the board in the choir room, becomes his motivation.

Kurt skips neatly around the topic every time he tries to bring it up but he’s determined, every time they enter the choir room those words loom over them, every song sung reminds him of what he needs to do. By the time he finally manages to corner him, they’re down to two days. 

Blaine sinks carefully into the seat next to him, breathing in slowly and watching Kurt carefully, Kurt who is buzzing with happiness at his father’s graduation gift and high on success and the end of an era. He doesn’t want to do this now, to kill the good mood they’ve been flying on since winning Nationals, but there are things that need to be said.

“Don’t you think we should have the talk?”

Kurt tries to push him off course but he can’t let this go - not this time around. The talk in Ms. Pillsbury’s office feels like an age ago, like something half-forgotten and spoken in the midst of a storm. This is now, this needs to be said.

They need to face the facts, whether they like them or not.

The thing is - he doesn’t know if they’re cut out for long distance. There’s still a shadow in his mind that he’s called Chandler - the one that swoops in when he’s suddenly not there every day to tell Kurt that he likes the way he’s wearing his hair or what those boots do for his legs and what that color does for his complexion. The one that’s there when Kurt’s loaded down with homework and people wanting to hang out with him, go places, and he doesn’t skype. It’s the one that is there to save the day when Blaine can’t feasibly get to New York on a whim when Kurt needs him.

He doesn’t even know what Chandler looks like, but it isn’t Chandler that he’s worried about really. It’s the idea that there will be Chandlers. It’s being replaced in Kurt’s life because he simply isn’t there.

It’s knowing that he will be replaced; that it isn’t a possibility, it’s a certainty. Because even if they do make it through that year of distance and being apart, they won’t ever be the same as they are now. Kurt is his best friend, the person he spends all his time with - he’s the one he goes to the mall with or drags to movies or coaxes into going to community theater productions. He’s the one he complains about homework to and sings songs with in the car.

When Kurt leaves all of those things are going to become someone else’s job and, even more than the kisses and the slow steadily building knowledge of each other’s bodies, those are the things he loves about being with Kurt. 

He can’t ignore that these things are going to be taken from them - that their lives are about to be split apart until they have less and less in common.

And he’s said it too - not the things that he probably should say, but the parts that matter, at least.

He’s trying - he really is, he throws in a reference to The Notebook because it might make Kurt smile, it might hide some of the fear that lurks behind his words and the part of him that wants to shake it off and go back to pretending. Two more days of denial.

But Kurt turns towards him, smiling like none of this matters and what he says makes Blaine’s heart pound in his chest. It’s not really an answer - it isn’t ‘this is the plan’ or ‘this is how we’ll get through it‘ - it’s ‘this is how I picture the end of my life’ and Blaine is stupid with it. Their hands tangle together and he breathes in deeply as Kurt repeats the same words he’d said so long ago, when he was leaving Dalton.

I told you I’m never saying goodbye to you.

Blaine lets himself believe it for once, squeezes his fingers over Kurt’s as something like relief sinks through him, bone-deep and soothing, chasing away the whispers of doubts from his mind. He lets it soak in, lets himself breathe for the first time all week and smiles when Kurt says, We’ll figure it out.

It isn’t a plan but it’s a promise.

\--

It’s easier now, to get through the week.

The seniors sing don’t let go and don’t give up and Blaine bites his lip and smiles as he realizes that he’s going to miss every single last one of them. The choir room won’t ever be the same and, for all that he’d never trade his time with the Warblers and everything they were to that scared, angry kid he was, he kind of wishes he’d had more time with them.

They hug and they cry but it’s all okay because he knows now that they’ll figure it out - that somehow it will be okay. They’ll make it work.

Kurt smiles right at him as he sings, you only get what you give.

\--

They sing “In My Life” to Finn at some strange consensus, but Blaine’s really singing to Kurt.

He’s forgiven Finn for the way he acted earlier in the year and he mostly thinks he can understand it, but there’s still really only one person to whom he can sing this song and truly mean it. He watches all the faces staring back at him and he knows he’ll miss every single one of them - but it’s Kurt that his eyes keep returning to.

In my life, I love you more.

\--

By the time the graduation ceremony rolls around he feels like the worst is already over. He sits next to Tina and she smiles at him, offers to share her travel-pack of tissues with him and he grins and shows her his own.

She grabs hold of his hand when the ceremony starts, her fingers clenching so hard he feels like his bones might be grinding together when Mike makes his way down the stairs. Blaine remembers his brother’s high school graduation - how it had been a long and stuffy ceremony with monotonous speeches and the continuous list of names that had seemed to go on forever after Anderson, Cooper had been called, the second in his class to walk on stage and accept his diploma. His parents had dragged him back into his seat when he’d cheered too loudly for his brother.

This is nothing like that - he watches Kurt descend the stairs, pushes tissues into his hands when he moves past him with tears already in his eyes, to a soundtrack of Puck singing Springsteen. There’s no order and only a few boring speeches, but he lets it all sink in.

Tina has stolen half of his tissues by the time the ceremony is through, her grip on his hand unrelenting until they watch the graduation caps spin through the air and they both stand to applaud.

The only thing he can think, as he keeps clapping until his hands start to tingle and his eyes are stinging, is that it’s over now.

This is what he’d been dreading all year, that event that’s loomed like a shadow over their relationship for months.

In retrospect, it doesn’t seem so bad.

\--

Kurt’s NYADA letter has been sitting, unopened and waiting for the better part of the day.

He’d told Blaine about the pact that he’d made with Finn and Rachel, that they would be opening their letters together. Blaine goes home with the promise that Kurt would call him with the news once they’ve done it.

It’s how he spends his afternoon sitting around with his phone just within reach, checking his emails and keeping his music turned low so he won’t miss the sound of his phone ringing. He picks up an already well-read copy of this month’s Vogue, switches that for a well-loved copy of To Kill A Mockingbird, that he tosses aside in frustration when he realizes he can’t seem to read past the first few paragraphs.

The more time that passes the more uneasy he gets - surely they’ve opened them by now?

The sun is drifting lower and lower towards the horizon as he shifts from his seat to his bed, tapping out a text to Cooper to distract himself and holding his phone to his chest as he waits.

He hears the front door open and close as his mom gets in, the sounds of her rattling around downstairs a sign that it’s well past five, and the uneasiness start to veer towards panic. It’s stupid - he knows it’s stupid - Kurt had killed his audition, he’d been brilliant, he was probably just at his house celebrating with his family and had gotten too caught up to call.

It doesn’t mean anything. 

He waits another ten minutes, his grip on his phone growing so tight he has to pry his fingers away lest he cause lasting damage, by then he can hear his mother humming tunelessly along to the radio (neither he nor Cooper had gained their musicality from her side of the family) so he rolls off his bed, still holding onto his phone and heads downstairs.

She smiles at him when he wanders into the kitchen, brushing a hand lightly over his shoulder as she wanders past saying, “I thought you could order in tonight.”

“Kurt got his NYADA letter today,” he says in lieu of anything else, his fingers clutching convulsively around his silent phone.

She’s still humming to whatever’s on the radio, he can’t seem to recognise the tune as she flutters around putting groceries away and he moves to help. “That’s nice, sweetie,” is the distracted response as she stretches onto her tiptoes to try and reach the top shelf.

“I’m waiting for him to call,” Blaine continues as he plucks the box from her hands and nudges it into its proper place.

He isn’t much taller than she is when she’s wearing heels, but she smiles gratefully at the help and brushes a hand over his cheek fondly before turning back to the bags of groceries waiting to be put away. 

“I’m sure he’ll be fine,” she assures him lightly as he moves out of her way as so she can start piling vegetables into the refrigerator. “You haven’t forgotten your father and I have a trip this weekend, have you? I brought plenty of food to last you the weekend so don’t order takeout every night, okay Blaine?”

“I didn’t forget,” Blaine replies, rubbing a finger over the casing of his phone and trying not to feel disappointed the longer he waits.

“Good,” she declares as she manages to shove the vegetable tray back into place with a huff of triumph and closes the refrigerator before turning to look at him with a smile, squeezing his arm on her way past as she adds, “You think about what you want for dinner, sweetie. I’ve got some things I need to look over for work before I pack for this weekend.”

He nods silently in response, sinking back against the counter as she disappears with a click of heels and peers down at the dark screen of his phone nervously. He wonders if maybe he should ring Kurt instead - he was probably busy celebrating right now, his dad making mushy speeches about how proud he is.

Blaine sighs and stares down at the toes of his socks before pushing his phone into his pocket.

Kurt will call him when he is ready.

\--

There are two false alarms over the course of the night - both of them from Cooper who is complaining first about an audition and second about how his little brother is the lamest teenager on the planet when he’d insisted he isn’t throwing any raging graduation parties with both mom and dad gone for the weekend.

He knows it’s really Cooper’s way of keeping tabs on him, that he still worries sometimes that Blaine gets lonely when their parents are gone so much.

It’s already dark and he’s hunched over a carton of noodles in the living room, the television turned down low on an episode of ‘Sixteen and Pregnant’ that he’s pretty sure he’s already seen when his phone buzzes again. He picks it up, ready to roll his eyes at yet another jibe from Cooper over how boring he’s gotten lately when he finds himself staring dumbly down at the message in confusion.

I didn’t get in.

He blinks a few times, wondering what Cooper is talking about before it registers who the text is from.

It has to be a joke.

Kurt had said he would call when he found out the news - 

He stares numbly, feeling like everything has slowed down beneath the weight of those four words, his thumb hovering indecisively over the screen before he’s scrambling to call Kurt. Noodles shoved aside and the television flickering silently on the screen as he listens to the line ring and waits for Kurt to pick up.

It takes longer than it should, a drawn out process that makes his heart thump harder with every passing ring, but before the answer machine can pick up Kurt answers. Blaine can hear the damp, snuffly intake of breath that is an assurance that Kurt’s been crying and his heart sinks, his chest contracting painfully with the realization that it isn’t a joke.

It’s real. Kurt didn’t get in.

“I-” he starts to say, lips suddenly dry and his tongue feeling too big for his mouth. “Kurt I’m so -”

“I can’t,” Kurt cuts him off, his voice brittle and jagged and it makes Blaine’s useless apologies die on his tongue. “I can’t talk about it, okay? I just - I didn’t want you to think I’d forgotten.”

Blaine bites his lip, finds that he’s nodding even though Kurt won’t see him and clears his throat, forcing out an, “Okay,” that results in a sound that might be relief from the other side of the phone.

“I - I need to think about it,” Kurt continues in that same strained voice. “I’ll call you when I can, okay?”

He nods again before he can stop himself, working his mouth silently, but his soft, “Okay,” is cut off by the dial tone.

He sits for a long time staring at the flickering screen of the television in silence, his noodles going cold and his phone dark and silent next to him. When he finally pushes himself up off the couch his muscles are stiff and his skin is cold to the touch. He turns off the television and shoves his half-eaten dinner in the refrigerator, rubbing his hands silently over his arms and feeling so stupidly helpless as he stumbles up the stairs to his room, strips off his clothes and crawls in beneath the covers of his bed.

It’s dark and it’s cold and there’s absolutely nothing he can do to make any of this better - so he closes his eyes and hopes that if he pretends hard enough, when he wakes up this will all be some terrible dream.

\--

It isn’t a dream.

Kurt is withdrawn and distant as he cleans out his locker, he shrugs Blaine off with a sad, strained attempt at a smile and Blaine retreats because he knows better than to push. Kurt is trying to hold off until they’ve got Rachel safely on her way to New York to meet up with her dads before he lets himself break.

Blaine hovers uncertainly, not sure what he’s supposed to do when he knows Kurt isn’t okay, but he isn’t ready to accept anyone’s help. To let anyone share in his pain, just yet.

He can’t quite fathom that of all the ways he imagined Kurt’s graduation panning out, all the scenarios he’d prepared himself for, armed himself with congratulations or the least bitter version of a break-up he can concoct in his head, Kurt not getting into NYADA wasn’t one of them.

Kurt’s already caught him twice today, shaking him off when apologies start to form on his lips, and he understands why but he just wants to feel like he’s helping. 

Instead they stand at the train station with Puck as a buffer between them, the brave face Kurt’s putting on so convincing Blaine almost lets himself believe it. Rachel is a mess of heartbreak and confusion as they send her on her way, but Blaine squeezes her arm when she moves past him. He wants to know that someone is okay, that however much this is hurting, it’s for the best and that she deserves it as well.

Everyone drifts away in groups and pairs when the train is gone and Blaine looks at Kurt, at how valiantly he’s struggling with keeping his own disappointment at bay and moves towards him, the question in his eyes met with a quick shake of his head that says ‘not yet.’

They make it to the parking lot, where Blaine had parked next to Kurt’s Navigator and he opens his mouth to ask, because he needs to do something, but instead Kurt shakes his head again and says, “I’ll call you when-”

The car keys are biting into the skin of his palm as his smile falters and he nods because he wants Kurt to know that he’s here, that he understands. He watches Kurt climb into the driver’s seat and is still standing there, his hands trembling and his throat unbearably tight when the Navigator has already left the parking lot.

\--

It’s three days before he hears from Kurt.

His house feels even quieter than it usually does when his parents are gone and he waits with his phone at his side, in his pocket, in his hand. Fingers twitching every time it buzzes with a text from someone or it rings.

The weekend drags on, any thought of end of year celebrations seem to have died in the wake of Kurt’s rejection letter and Blaine spends most of it huddled in front of the television, staring blankly at reruns of reality TV shows he doesn’t have the will to turn off.

Cooper calls him every night, sounding less and less capable of hiding his concern each time. He assures Blaine that Kurt will have no problems finding his path - that he has all the options in the world open to him and one rejection isn’t going to stop him, but it’s clear to Blaine that Kurt isn’t the one Cooper is really concerned about.

He wants to tell Cooper that he isn’t the one who just had his dreams shattered, that he’s fine, that all he really needs is to know that Kurt is okay beyond the perfunctory, two word text messages he’s been getting in response to his attempts at making contact.

It’s Tuesday when Kurt calls, his voice still hollow and quiet but strangely resolute as he asks if Blaine can come over.

Blaine’s been waiting for his parents to get back from their trip for most of the afternoon, but he doesn’t hesitate to grab his car keys and hurry out the door with only a hastily scrawled message left on the kitchen counter.

He doesn’t know what he should expect when he arrives at Kurt’s house, but it certainly isn’t Burt standing behind the door, looking so much older back in his scruffy denim and plaid. His face looks so serious as he claps a hand over Blaine’s shoulder and says, “He’s in his room,” that it makes Blaine’s stomach sink.

The climb up the stairs feels like it takes longer than it usually does, his heart loud in his ears as he wonders what he’s going to find, if Kurt is finally ready to let him be there for him. His fingers twist together until he shoves one into his pocket, takes a deep breath and pauses in front of Kurt’s door.

He hesitates before he knocks, wondering why he isn’t just walking straight in, but Kurt calls out for him to come in and he pushes it open, forcing himself to take the steps through the door and staring wide-eyed at Kurt sitting on the edge of his bed.

Blaine isn’t sure what he expected - Kurt lying beneath the covers with a sea of tissues around him or bundled up in pajamas or sweatpants or something. Kurt moping, maybe. He hadn’t expected this though.

Kurt looks good, impeccably dressed as always, all sharp crisp lines and muted colors. His hair is styled within an inch of it’s life and even though Blaine is willing to bet he hasn’t left the house today, he’s wearing his knee high lace-up Doc Martins. More than that, however, is the carefully guarded look on Kurt’s face as he says, “Close the door.”

Blaine hesitates for only a moment before he pushes the door shut behind him, wondering exactly what he’s supposed to do as he carefully approaches the bed before changing his mind at the last moment and moving to sit on the stool in front of Kurt’s vanity instead. Something tells him he wants to be able to see Kurt’s face for this.

“I - don’t really know how to say this,” Kurt says once Blaine’s seated and something uneasy ripples down his spine at the way Kurt bites his lip and looks away. “I’ve been trying to figure out what I’m going to do.”

Blaine swallows dryly and nods slowly, eyes fixed on Kurt’s face and wondering at the way Kurt can’t quite look at him, eyes fixed downward, studying his fingernails and frowning at them.

“I’ve been talking to my dad a lot,” he continues softly, determinedly. “He wanted to call the admissions desk and ask them why, but I didn’t want to be that kid. I know why I didn’t get in. My application was practically empty, why would they take Officer Krupke when they probably had a hundred Tonys audition?”

Kurt laughs a little and Blaine’s heart twists at the bitterness of that sound, the only outward sign that Kurt isn’t as entirely okay as he seems to want Blaine to believe. He shakes his head and sighs softly, like he’s casting off that train of thought.

“I’ve been thinking a lot too, about what I want to do next year, and researching what I can still apply for,” he runs a thumbnail along the inner seam of his jeans and glances briefly up at Blaine in a way that makes his heart clench. “But that’s not the reason I called you either.”

Kurt sighs and rubs a hand over his face, the calmness he’s been trying to exude crumbling as he flashes a pathetic attempt at a watery smile over at him that looks so apologetic, so concerned that it makes Blaine freeze in place because he doesn’t understand why Kurt would be looking at him like that.

“I - I realized that I’ve been so focused on NYADA this year that now that I - that it’s not an option, anymore, I don’t really know what I want,” Kurt takes a deep breath and fixes his eyes so intently on Blaine that he feels like he can’t move at all. “This changed everything. And you’ve been - you’ve been so supportive Blaine, and I love you for it, but I need to figure out who I am and what I want now, Blaine and I - I think I need to do it alone.”

It’s so quiet that Blaine thinks he can hear Kurt’s words echoing in the air and his fingers curl slowly into the stool beneath him, his tongue slowly wetting his lips as he stares back, confused because surely that isn’t what Kurt means -

\- but Kurt’s just watching him, his eyes wet with unshed tears and lips trembling and waiting.

“Are you breaking up with me?” Blaine asks, his voice catching in his throat as he stares back, uncomprehending and waiting for Kurt to shake his head or to laugh at him for being so stupid, to tell him that he’s never saying goodbye to him, because he promised.

Instead Kurt bites down on his lip to stop it from trembling and slowly nods, a tear escaping down his cheek as he says, “It’s not - it’s not because of you, Blaine. You didn’t do anything wrong -”

You’re auditioning for Tony too?

“Why now? You said we were going to figure this out - I could help -”

It feels like there’s something wrapped around his chest, squeezing tighter and tighter as he blinks back the haze of tears from his eyes. He doesn’t understand how this is happening - why Kurt would give up on them now when only a week ago he’d been comparing them to Noah and Allie. (Except that was wrong too, wasn’t it? Allie forgot all about Noah in the end.)

You have no idea what it’s like being your boyfriend -

“I just really need to focus on finding out what I want, Blaine,” Kurt replies, his eyes rising up to fix on Blaine’s face and he sees it then.

How certain Kurt is. The almost gentle resolution in the sadness on his face as he says, “I’m sorry. I don’t - I didn’t want to hurt you, but I need to do what feels right - what’s best for me. And right now I don’t think I can do that if I’m with you.”

It’s not about you.

Blaine drops his eyes to his knees, struggling to keep his breathing steady as everything crumbles around him.

“I hope you understand,” Kurt adds and Blaine can see the way he shifts uncertainly, his boots pressing into the carpet as he tips forward as if to get up, to move towards him before he settles back again.

“I’m sorry,” Kurt says instead and Blaine lurches to his feet, staring numbly down at the floor as he sways for a moment before turning towards the door. “Blaine -”

“I should go,” he replies, his fingers trembling as he reaches for the door handle and immediately wants to stop, because the last thing he wants to do is hurt Kurt more - but he doesn’t know how to do this.

He’d thought they were safe - that they were free of the danger.

They talked about it and agreed they would be okay. That they would work through what having to deal with long distance meant together. They were going to try and make it work.

He’s been so scared all year, the building worry over NYADA and New York and their disappearing time together that he never ever thought that Kurt not going to NYADA would be the thing that would break them.

It feels like some kind of sick joke.

“- Blaine.”

He blinks rapidly against the tears building in his eyes, swipes one away with the back of his sleeve and tugs at the door, suddenly desperate to get away. He came here thinking he could maybe help comfort Kurt, make him feel better.

Now he’s leaving with his heart broken too.

“You promised you’d never say goodbye to me,” he tells the empty hallway before he pulls the door shut behind him. 

His feet have him half stumbling down the steps, squeezing past Finn when he tries to slow him down with a confused, “Hey dude, where’s the fire?”

Burt calls out to him from the doorway of the kitchen as he barrels past, but he doesn’t stop. He doesn’t want anyone - let alone Kurt’s dad - to see him cry.

By the time he hits the front porch he’s all-but running, hurrying down the steps to his car and trying to make himself think and breathe and close everything else off. He just needs to drive.

\--

When he arrives home his father’s car is in the driveway and the lights in the house are already on. He can’t stop making these awful snuffly noises every time he breathes in and his eyes are red, his cheeks are wet and his head is throbbing almost as much as his heart is. 

He feels empty and tired and the last thing he wants is to face his parents right now - not when every breath he takes is shadowed with -

I need to do what’s best for me

\- and god, he’s so selfish because isn’t that what he wants for Kurt? What he’s always wanted for Kurt? But how can what’s best for Kurt hurt him so much?

He wishes his parents were still gone - that he didn’t have to walk into a house where these people who sometimes feel like strangers who share the same house will want to know what’s wrong and what happened. 

Even more than that, he wishes that Cooper was here.

His mom will hug him and pet his hair, tell him she’s sorry even though she doesn’t really know Kurt, has only met him in passing and his dad won’t know what to do at all - he’ll make vaguely sympathetic noises and pat him on the shoulder and neither of them will actually get it. Cooper would - well he doesn’t know what Cooper would do, really.

When he was little Cooper would make them spaghetti-o’s for dinner when their parents were working late and he’d walk Blaine home from school. He’d yell at him to stay out of his things and get so angry but when Blaine was tucked up on his bed crying he’d always come and apologize, eventually. In retrospect, Cooper was always the one Blaine counted on when he needed somebody.

He closes his eyes and rests his forehead against the steering wheel, takes a deep breath before he reaches to unbuckle his seatbelt and carefully gets out of the car. His phone has been buzzing in his pocket on and off for the past half hour but he ignores it in favour of scrubbing his hands roughly across his face and trying to steady his breathing.

The walk to the front door is slow and steady as he convinces himself that he can do this - that he can pretend everything is fine and escape to his room and then he can mope as much as he wants. School is officially out and auditions for Six Flags aren’t for another week.

Nobody needs to know unless he tells them.

The door snaps shut behind him and he hears his mother’s voice call out from the direction of the kitchen. He opens his mouth to try and call back, but his voice dies in his throat when he sees his dad appear in the doorway.

They stare at one another for a moment, Blaine’s resolve to pretend everything’s fine crumbling at the strange expression on his father’s face as he steps forward, something like panic racing across his features before he demands, “What happened? Are you hurt? What’s-”

His father’s hand curls around his arm tugging him towards the light spilling through the doorway as if to determine for himself if he’s hurt or not and Blaine lets himself be pulled, the croaked out, “I’m okay,” clearly not convincing enough to stop anyone.

He and his father have never understood each other very well and since he came out it’s like with every passing year it seems to get worse, this inability to communicate that makes them both uncomfortable in each other’s presence. Blaine knows it isn’t simple, that his father cares in ways that are harder to define than the relationship that he so miserably envies between Kurt and his father. 

Their relationship isn’t easy and sometimes Blaine gets so frustrated, wishing they could just understand each other, but there are moments when he’s reminded that while his father may not entirely get him he does love him. 

It happens as he tries to force the words out, choking on words like we broke up or it’s over because he can’t bring himself to give voice to them, but his father’s hand fits over his shoulder, feeling huge and warm through the thin cotton of his shirt before he suddenly pulls Blaine in closer.

Hugging isn’t something they usually do and it’s apparent in the stiffness in his father’s arms as they wrap around his shoulders, tighter than they should be but strangely comforting for it. 

“We got a phone call from your boyfriend’s father asking if you’d gotten home okay,” is all the explanation he gets for the hug and his father refusing to let go just yet and when Blaine’s breath hitches at the word boyfriend fingers squeeze at his arm.

“He’s not my boyfriend anymore,” Blaine says unsteadily into his father’s shoulder.

Blaine is pretty sure he isn’t imagining it when his father’s arms squeeze just a little tighter.

\--

His parents tread warily around him for the rest of the week. His mother pressing kisses to his cheeks when she gets home from work, his father asking stilted uncomfortable questions about Six Flags auditions. They’re so visibly making an effort that it makes the constant throb in his chest feel almost unbearable, traitorous, because if even his parents have noticed then it must be obvious how miserable he is.

Cooper calls twice at the start of the week, listening intently to him dredge out the entire conversation but Blaine had hung up on him when he’d tried to say it might be for the best. He hasn’t had another call since, though Blaine knows his parents have been talking to him, from the hushed conversations he overhears that die when he enters a room.

He gets a text from Mike on Thursday asking if he’d forgotten about Finn’s farewell party and Blaine wonders if any of them know or if Kurt is leaving it to him to break the news to their friends. It all feels so unbelievably unfair that he turns his phone off and shoves it under his bed where he doesn’t have to look at it.

Most days he spends on the sofa or out in the garden. He mows the lawns and yanks what he thinks are weeds from the flowerbeds, lies in the sun and blocks out the rest of the world with his headphones. It’s easier to ignore the world when there is nothing else except for him and the music.

He doesn’t cry and he doesn’t think about Kurt, not when he can help it. When the thoughts do come they are overwhelming, snide reminders that Kurt decided he’s better off without him. That somehow Blaine’s the thing that’s holding Kurt back from realizing what he wants to do with his life.

They’re the thoughts that sting and burrow beneath the skin - he finds himself wondering if he hadn’t auditioned for the play if Kurt would have gotten Tony and if Kurt would have been accepted to NYADA if that had been on his application. And what if Blaine hadn’t transferred at all? If Kurt had gotten competition solos and Tony and all of those things Kurt accused him of taking from him. He wonders if maybe Kurt regrets it now, asking Blaine to transfer.

By the end of the week their backyard is so tidy there’s nothing to do except lay down on the grass, staring up at the sky and wondering what he’s supposed to be feeling about this, if things are supposed to be getting better, if the throb in his chest is ever going to recede - but all he can think in the quiet moments is how much this hurts. He’d thought he could prepare himself for this - and looking back he now knows he’d been trying to do it for almost half a year - trying to guard his heart against what he’d thought would be an inevitability, something mutual and gently decided, but none of it had helped. 

He thinks about the two long nights he’d spent carefully constructing a ring out of gum wrappers and practicing the words until they ran smoothly off his tongue. At Christmas time it had all seemed so simple - he may not have been able to afford anything from the Elizabeth Taylor Auction but he could give Kurt that one thing - and with it a promise.

Blaine doesn’t think he believes in promises anymore.

When the sun starts to set and insects start to buzz in around him he moves inside, retreating to his room to slump on his bed and stare at his ceiling. He wonders if he should check his phone but makes no move to retrieve it from where it still lies, dark and silent somewhere beneath his bed.

He wants to live a little longer in this cocoon of one he’s created. Nobody’s making any promises here, not even to himself.

It’s already dark when the sound of the front door shutting wakes him, his eyes fluttering lazily open to stare at his ceiling in confusion because he doesn’t quite remember closing them at all. There are noises floating in from downstairs, the click of his mother’s heels across the floor (and she’s late - very late for a Monday) and the louder tread of boots.

He can hear the murmur of laughter, his mother’s high and delighted mixed with another that’s just as familiar but entirely impossible, because that laugh belongs almost half the country away (it’s probably just his father. They sound more alike when Blaine’s tired.) Blaine pushes himself slowly up onto his hands, trying to stretch the stiffness out of his neck and his arms, staring blankly around his room as he wonders why his mother’s so late getting home.

The slow track of his eyes towards his alarm clock gives him pause, his eyes stuck on the sight of Kurt’s campaign photo sitting on his shelf, something so inconspicuous - such a part of his room’s decor now that he hadn’t given it a second thought all week. Suddenly it feels invasive, Kurt’s eyes fixed on him from the other side of the room are a reminder that Kurt doesn’t need him, doesn’t want him. That all the promises in the world couldn’t keep them together.

He’s too busy staring at it, the evidence that no matter how much he has tried to block him out over the past week, Kurt still remains in his world; that he doesn’t hear the soft tread of boots on the staircase or outside his door until there’s a soft knock against his door and it opens.

Blaine’s eyes jerk away from the photo, landing on the bewildering sight of Cooper in his doorway and sticking on his face, on the way he tilts his head and clucks his tongue like he doesn’t like what he sees and takes a step inside Blaine’s room.

Cooper’s voice is soft, teasing as he says, “Don’t I get a better welcome than that, little brother?”

With that he’s pushing himself up on stiff, tired limbs, rearranging them all until he can stand and stumble the three feet between them. Cooper’s arms close around him the moment he pushes into his space and it’s easy in the way that his parents embraces never quite are.

These arms know him better than anyone else’s - they’re the ones that hauled him up off the ground the first time he fell off his bike and stroked his hair when Sean Redford pushed him off the jungle gym and broke his wrist - Cooper has taken care of him his entire life in all the ways that his parents schedules have meant they’ve never been able to.

Blaine buries his face into Cooper’s shoulder and breathes in the smell of him - travel-worn and disgusting but still somehow comforting beneath it all - and breathes out the words that have been pounding in his head all week into Cooper’s shirt, “He doesn’t want me, Coop.”

“His loss,” Cooper replies into his ruffled hair, squeezing just a little harder before he pulls back holding onto Blaine’s shoulders and staring critically at his face with a thoughtful expression. “You need to clean yourself up kiddo, you and I have a date with Breadstix tonight.”

He starts to shrink back, shaking his head immediately because he isn’t ready yet - not to leave the safety of his cocoon where it’s only him and no disappointments other than the ones he inflicts on himself - but Cooper holds on, narrowing his eyes a little before a hand drifts up to tug on a strand of his hair with an amused smile.

“The situations worse than I thought, you didn’t even bother to gel,” he murmurs before he claps him on the shoulder firmly and repeats, “Get to it, little bro, I promised Mom that she and Dad could have the house to themselves for the evening. Now scoot.”

With that it’s kind of clear that there really isn’t a choice in the matter.

\--

He feels different, scrubbed clean and hair slicked back and with Cooper guiding him every step of the way with an arm thrown around his shoulders like he thinks Blaine might try and escape if left to his own devices. Breadstix is quiet on a Monday night and Cooper ensures they’re seated away from the busiest section with a wink and a terrible attempt at what Blaine thinks might be an English accent. Or possibly Swedish.

They sit on either side of the table and Blaine chews on a breadstick in silence, studiously ignoring the way Cooper keeps trying to catch his eye after their waitress disappears with their orders and their menus until he lets out a loud sigh and says, “So you’re still mad at me then?”

Blaine’s eyes jerk up from their careful inspection of his silverware in surprise, his mouth dropping open as he blurts out, “No, why would I be-”

Cooper grins at him, wide and toothy, the smile making the skin at the corner of his eyes crinkle and Blaine frowns a little in response, annoyed at the half-laughed, “Still so gullible, little brother.”

He shifts back against the slippery leather of the booth, folding his arms across his chest and listening to the soft clink of cutlery and the murmur of conversations that drift through the restaurant before Cooper sighs again and leans forward, planting his elbows on the edge of the table as he says, “You’ve got the parents worried, kid. I’m pretty sure Mom was looking into exorcisms to see if she can stop put a stop to the gardening demon that keeps pulling out all her petunias.”

Blaine’s eyes dip back towards the table, his cheeks starting to warm beneath the scrutiny as he mutters, “I thought they were weeds.”

Cooper grins at him again though it fades into something softer this time around and he’s quiet for a moment, his eyes fixed carefully on Blaine’s face before he says, “I get it, you know. Kurt was special to you, first loves always are, but shutting yourself off like this isn’t healthy. For you or Mom’s flower beds. Though clearly it’s been helping out your tan.”

Cooper reaches across the table to try and tweak at his nose, lips quirked in amusement as he adds, “You may want to lay off the sun a little unless you want to end up looking like a guest-star from Jersey Shore.”

Blaine grimaces and swats Cooper’s hand away, the part of him that feels determinedly miserable stirring in annoyance at Cooper’s repeated attempts to draw a smile out of him. 

There’s another sigh before Cooper shifts again, trying to catch his eye and staring at him intently as he says, “I came home because I’m worried - you can’t live your life for someone else, Blaine and sometimes I think that’s what you’ve been doing. I don’t know what’s going on in that strange little head but people care about you, not just who you’re dating.”

A tremble starts up in his hands and Blaine tucks them beneath his legs, biting his lower lip to stop that from betraying him as well as his throat aches and he says, “He promised he wasn’t going to leave me behind, Coop.”

And it’s almost like saying, you promised.

Cooper stares at him for a moment, and Blaine half-expects some empty platitude to fall from his lips. You’re the best thing that ever happened to him or he doesn’t deserve you, but Cooper doesn’t say it. 

Instead he sighs and drags a hand slowly down his face before he says, “I know that we’ve dropped the ball Blaine, after - after everything that happened to you - Mom and Dad didn’t know what to do and I was so caught up in my brand new life that it was easy to pretend it wasn’t my problem. You needed us and we failed you. But you’re so much stronger than that, Blaine, the strongest person I know. I don’t know why Kurt broke up with you but I do know that there are so many other boys out there who would break down doors to have a chance with you and whatever it is that you’ve been thinking, you don’t need a single one of them.”

Blaine tilts his chin up a little to meet Cooper’s eyes and receives a smile in return, an amused quirk of eyebrows, before Cooper sits back in the booth and watches Blaine carefully. “You’re coming to visit me in LA for a few weeks.”

He opens his mouth to say something about Six Flags or needing to be in Ohio, to spend time with everyone before they leave for college before Cooper shakes his head and adds, “Mom and Dad have already booked your flights. It’s only a few weeks. It should be more than enough time for Mom to fix whatever you’ve done to her garden.”

The smile sneaks over his lips before he can stop it, followed by a snort when Cooper practically beams with pride and finally a soft laugh that echoes Cooper’s declaration of, “That’s more like it, baby brother. I think you’re going to be just fine.”

\--

It starts with the rolling motion, the increasing pressure as they pick up speed and Cooper’s voice hums soft and low, so quietly Blaine can barely hear it. Cooper hates this part.

It’s mostly quiet as they gather speed, the judder of wheels bouncing a little on the tarmac as they lift up and bounce down, up and down, until they’re up and up and up -

\- For so long Blaine’s felt like time is slipping through his fingers no matter how hard he tries to keep a hold of it, to slow it down and will the clock to turn back. To beg just a little longer, just a little more. All he really has left to him now is to just let go. 

So he does.

It feels like freedom.


End file.
